April 12, 2014
Crawfish River to Madison, WI
“Fly! Let not the swift wait for the slow! Ride!”
What must it be like, to run unto death? Not, as a soldier might, to run into battle knowing that death faces him in the form of an enemy, adrenaline coursing through his body. Instead, to run when you cannot run. To run when it is impossible to run. To run when your body has depleted itself beyond reserves and is in the act of consuming its own flesh and bones in an effort to sustain life. To run when the very act of running ravages your starving, exhausted body, numbs your mind, tears at your lungs, and eats away at your very spirit. To run in this condition, side-by-side with those you love, those you have known all your life, knowing that to help them may mean your own death? What would it be like to watch them falter, stumble, and fall, knowing they may not get up again, and to be too afraid to go back and find out?
What if you were in your 50’s or 60’s? What if you were a woman with children, used to hard work, but not conditioned to running? What if your child that you were nursing died because you were no longer able to give milk? What if you had to toss the small, lifeless body aside – not even be able to take the time to bury this flesh of your flesh – and keep running in hopeless desperation, in fear that a great mounted force would hunt you down like game, shoot you, and scalp your still-breathing and bleeding body only to be left laying out for the wolves to eat?
What if you were running through thickets and swamps, lost in a place you did not know, facing heavy rains, and sleeping in wet grass on the open earth, while the temperature raged in the 90s by day, and fell into the 60s by night? What if you were one of the people in Black Hawk’s fleeing band who had lost all hope, and knew only the primal instinct to run as if your life depended on it, as it surely did. What if you were one of the people who simply ran until your heart stopped beating, your chest stopped gasping for air, and the blood stopped running through your body? What if you were forced to run unto death?
They knew that they were only a day or two at most ahead of their pursuers. They left the Rock River Falls area either July 16th or 17th, and headed west in an all-in race to the Wisconsin River, where they hoped to follow that river south and back to their new home across the Mississippi in Iowa. They managed to get as far as the Madison Lakes, a distance of approximately 60 miles, by the 20th of July, before the pursuing troops were close enough to warrant defensive action.
I drove the distance from the Crawfish River in Aztalan to Madison in far less than an hour, along the paved and impersonal miracle of engineering we so casually refer to as I-94. As I drove, I noticed perhaps for the first time the swamps and thickets that stand to this day, undisturbed since before time was measured in numbers. Where were the bones of the dead? Returned to the earth, as they should be. Where were the spirits of the dead? If not at peace, then I hope they are close enough to hear my prayers.
What if you were in your 50’s or 60’s? What if you were a woman with children, used to hard work, but not conditioned to running? What if your child that you were nursing died because you were no longer able to give milk? What if you had to toss the small, lifeless body aside – not even be able to take the time to bury this flesh of your flesh – and keep running in hopeless desperation, in fear that a great mounted force would hunt you down like game, shoot you, and scalp your still-breathing and bleeding body only to be left laying out for the wolves to eat?
What if you were running through thickets and swamps, lost in a place you did not know, facing heavy rains, and sleeping in wet grass on the open earth, while the temperature raged in the 90s by day, and fell into the 60s by night? What if you were one of the people in Black Hawk’s fleeing band who had lost all hope, and knew only the primal instinct to run as if your life depended on it, as it surely did. What if you were one of the people who simply ran until your heart stopped beating, your chest stopped gasping for air, and the blood stopped running through your body? What if you were forced to run unto death?
They knew that they were only a day or two at most ahead of their pursuers. They left the Rock River Falls area either July 16th or 17th, and headed west in an all-in race to the Wisconsin River, where they hoped to follow that river south and back to their new home across the Mississippi in Iowa. They managed to get as far as the Madison Lakes, a distance of approximately 60 miles, by the 20th of July, before the pursuing troops were close enough to warrant defensive action.
I drove the distance from the Crawfish River in Aztalan to Madison in far less than an hour, along the paved and impersonal miracle of engineering we so casually refer to as I-94. As I drove, I noticed perhaps for the first time the swamps and thickets that stand to this day, undisturbed since before time was measured in numbers. Where were the bones of the dead? Returned to the earth, as they should be. Where were the spirits of the dead? If not at peace, then I hope they are close enough to hear my prayers.
Makataimeshekiakiak – the white man’s history speaks little of your flight from the Sinnissippi to the Four Lakes. They speak little of your anguish and frustration. They speak little of the hardships your people faced in these three or four days of non-stop marching westward. Their words spoke casually about your dead, as though they were no more important than the pots and mats and other possessions that littered your path, cast aside in your flight. I had to learn of this part of your journey by standing where you stood, tasting the waters of the springs, feeling the wind and the rain, and turning my face to the west, seeking a faraway place called home. Hear me, Makataimeshekiakiak. Much has changed. Even while you still walked the earth there were those who told of the tragedy of your people, and knew it was wrong. Now, while you walk with the spirits, there are more who hear your story and know of the tragedy. I mourn for your dead. I weep for the fallen. I pray for their spirits. I open myself to them, to let them feel my love. As I travel this path I celebrate their lives, and the good that they brought to this earth. They are not forgotten. Ah-ho.
(Key Terms: Ma-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kia-Kiak, Black Sparrow Hawk, Black Hawk, 1767, Saukenuk, Pyesa, Rock Island, Black Hawk’s Watch Tower, Black Hawk State Historic Site, Hauberg Museum, Sauk, Sac, Meskwaki, Fox, Rock River, Sinnissippi River, Mississippi River, War of 1812, British Band, Great Britain, Treaty of 1804, Treaties, Ceded Land, William Henry Harrison, Quashquame, Keokuk, Fort Armstrong, Samuel Whiteside, Black Hawk War of 1832, Black Hawk Conflict, Scalp, Great Sauk Trail, Black Hawk Trail, Prophetstown, Wabokieshiek, White Cloud, The Winnebago Prophet, Ne-o-po-pe, Dixon’s Ferry, Isaiah Stillman, The Battle of Stillman’s Run, Old Man’s Creek, Sycamore Creek, Abraham Lincoln, Chief Shabbona, Felix St. Vrain, Lake Koshkonong, Fort Koshkonong, Fort Atkinson, Henry Atkinson, Andrew Jackson, Lewis Cass, Winfield Scott, Chief Black Wolf, Henry Dodge, James Henry, White Crow, Rock River Rapids, The Four Lakes, Battle of Wisconsin Heights, Benjamin Franklin Smith, Wisconsin River, Kickapoo River, Soldier’s Grove, Steamboat Warrior, Steamship Warrior, Fort Crawford, Battle of Bad Axe, Bad Axe Massacre, Joseph M. Street, Antoine LeClaire, Native American, Indian, Michigan Territory, Indiana Territory, Louisiana Territory, Osage, Souix, Potawatomi, Ojibwe, Ottawa, Ho-Chunk)
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